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August 15, 2024
 

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THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 24, 2002
When 'home' holds uneasy welcome
BROKERED HOMELAND: Japanese Brazilian Migrants in Japan, by Joseph Hotaka Roth. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2002, 161 pp., $16.95 (paper) The story that was once told about citizens of foreign countries who could demonstrate Japanese ancestry was that even if they had never been to...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 24, 2002
Spotlight on Sri Lanka
PROFILING SRI LANKAN CINEMA, by Wimal Dissanayake and Ashley Ratnavibhushana. Sri Lanka: Asian Film Center, 2000, 46 monochrome photos, 152 pp., $25 (paper) In this comprehensive history of Sri Lankan film, the authors suggest four levels through which a national cinema might be understood. First, it...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 17, 2002
Year of the dragon
DRAGON DANCE, by Peter Tasker. Kodansha International, 2002, 272 pp., $22.95 (cloth) After beating Tokyo's mean streets in "Silent Thunder" (1992) and "Buddha Kiss" (1997), Peter Tasker's Tokyo gumshoe Kazuo Mori finally hit his literary stride in 1999 with "Samurai Boogie" -- one of the most entertaining...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 17, 2002
But no shortage of shocks and intrigue
Author Peter Tasker talks to Mark Schreiber about his latest novel, ``Dragon Dance,'' a thriller set against the backdrop of U.S.-East Asian relations in 2006.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 17, 2002
Superiority met altruism when West advised East
TO CHANGE CHINA: Western Advisers in China, by Jonathan D. Spence. New York/London: Penguin Books, 2002, 336 pp., 21 b/w photographs, $15 (paper) This intelligent and entertaining book is a reprint of the original 1969 American edition, much missed and sought after, and now available again. In it, Jonathan...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 17, 2002
Sit up and beg, there's a good boy
The fatal stabbing of an independent-minded Diet member by an unbalanced ultrarightist last month raised the specter of the kind of political terrorism seen in pre-World War II Japan. If the global economy should worsen, could Japan once again fall into ultranationalism?
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 10, 2002
Coming of age in Heartbreak Hotel, New Jersey
WAYLAID, by Ed Lin. Kaya Press: New York, 2002, 169 pp., $12.95 (paper) This terrific first novel by Chinese-American writer Ed Lin revolves around a 12-year-old coming of age in New Jersey in the 1970s, burdened by his virginity and motivated mainly by the desire to lose it.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 10, 2002
On a voyage to Ionia
THE INLAND SEA, by Donald Richie. Stone Bridge Press, 2002, 255 pp., $16.95 (paper) Since the publication in English of Yukio Mishima's 1954 romance novel, "The Sound of Waves," there has been a fondness for visualizing Japan's Inland Sea, with its islands of olives, oranges, sunburned fisherfolk and...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 10, 2002
The mismeasure of Emperor Meiji
EMPEROR OF JAPAN: Meiji and His World 1852-1912, by Donald Keene. Columbia University Press: New York, 2002, 922 pp. + xiii + 18 pp. of illustrations, $39.50 (cloth) Like any great story, history prefers that its leading men (and women) have some sparkle, whether a foible (Henry VIII's marital tangles;...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 3, 2002
The many faces of Macao
MACAO, by Philippe Pons. Translated from the French by Sarah Adams. London: Reaktion Books, 2002. 135 pp. with 33 illustrations, £14.95 (paper) At the end of his splendid evocation of the city of Macao, Philippe Pons quotes a paragraph by journalist and novelist Italo Calvino about cities that "sometimes...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 27, 2002
Movie poll shows Asia rising
SIGHT & SOUND. Special issue: September, 2002. London: British Film Institute, £3.25. "Top 10" lists may be prejudiced, arbitrary and capricious, but they also indicate inclinations and directions. Once a decade since 1952, the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine has polled leading critics...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 27, 2002
An unflinching look at the face of suffering
FEAR AND SANCTUARY: Burmese Refugees in Thailand, by Hazel J. Lang. Cornell Southeast Asia Publications: Ithaca, New York, 2002, 240 pp., $24 (paper) An army column enters a small farming village without warning. The soldiers have been taught that everyone there is a potential enemy. Should any villagers...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 27, 2002
The lesser of many possible evils
THE UNITED STATES IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC SINCE 1945, by Roger Buckley. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2002. 258 pp., $65 (cloth) This is a wide-ranging, ambitious and informative work on an immense subject. Given the vast terrain and limited space, Roger Buckley has had to resist the temptations...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 20, 2002
A reality check for the relationship
U.S.-JAPAN RELATIONS IN A CHANGING WORLD, edited by Steven K. Vogel. Brookings Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 2002, 286 pp., $18.95 (cloth) The Japan-U.S. alliance is a remarkable achievement. The two countries are virtual mirror images of each other, and have, until recently, had relatively little...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 20, 2002
When romancing medieval Japan, why stop at one?
ACROSS THE NIGHTINGALE FLOOR: Tales of the Otori (Book One), by Lian Hearn. Riverhead Books, 2002, 304 pp., $24.95 (cloth) For over a century, Asia has been a rich and enduring source of inspiration for fantasy and science fiction writers. Since James Hilton created the fantastic Himalayan utopia of...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 20, 2002
Liberated from language
IDEOGRAMS IN CHINA, by Henri Michaux. Translated by Gustaf Sobin, with an afterword by Richard Sieburth. New York: New Directions, 2002, 58 pp. with selected ideograms, $9.95 (paper) Poet Ezra Pound, following the lead of scholar Ernest Fenollosa, once said that Chinese was the ideal medium for poetry,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 13, 2002
Confessions over a cup of coffee
ON TSUKUBA PEAK: Tanka by Hatsue Kawamura. Five Islands Press: Wollongong, Australia, z2002, 93 pp., $20/1,500 yen (paper) MEMORIES OF A WOMAN: Tanka by Harue Aoki. Mura Press, Tokyo, 2001, 204 pp., 1,800 yen (paper) Women poets have a long and industrious history in Japan, where they have been writing...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 13, 2002
You're never too old to read a good self-help book
The best-seller list currently features three volumes on living and aging well: "Oite Koso Jinsei" (Nothing Is More Human Than Aging), by novelist/politician Shintaro Ishihara; "Unmei no Ashioto" (The Footsteps of Approaching Fate), by novelist Hiroyuki Itsuki; and "Ikikata Jozu" (How to Live Well),...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 13, 2002
Composer Toru Takemitsu gets his turn in the spotlight
A WAY A LONE: Writings on Toru Takemitsu, edited by Hugh de Ferranti and Yoko Narazaki. Tokyo: Academia Music, Ltd., 2002, 258 pp. with musical examples and one b/w photo, 3,000 yen (paper) THE MUSIC OF TORU TAKEMITSU, by Peter Burt. Cambridge University Press, 2002, 294 pp., with 133 musical examples,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 6, 2002
No looker, but a great personality
BANGKOK, by William Warren. Reaktion Books, 2002. 160 pp., with monochrome photos, £14.95 (paper) Thailand's ebullient capital is many things, but it is not beautiful. True, there are many lovely things in it, but it can no more be considered comely than can Tokyo, a city it in some ways resembles....
Japan to revise consumption tax exemption for overseas tourists
Tourists walk through Nakamise shopping street near Sensoji Temple in Tokyo in April
Japan's tourism industry hit by cancellations after megaquake alert
A beach closed due to a megaquake alert in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Friday to Thursday.
Focus shifts to incoming typhoon as Tropical Storm Maria dissipates
Newly formed Tropical Storm Ampil, which is forecast to approach eastern Japan this weekend, is seen on the left side of this satellite image.
Kishida to step down in September in bid to show ‘LDP has changed’
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
Publisher finds surprise audience after translating history textbooks
Yamakawa Shuppansha president Takeshi Nozawa holds the publisher's textbook on Japanese history — used in high schools across Japan — alongside the new English version in Tokyo on May 23.
Economic security is about strengthening and sustaining growth, former minister says
Former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi says changes in the international balance of power, along with deepening economic interdependence, have led some countries to attempt to use their economic power to impose their will on others.
Ice bandanas, convenience store breaks: Running under Japan’s summer sun
Blistering heat is becoming a fixture of summer in Japan, but a few tweaks to your routine can make your outdoor runs bearable — if not enjoyable — until cooler temperatures return.
Japan issued its first-ever megaquake alert. What does that mean?
Naoshi Hirata (center), chairman of a committee tasked with evaluating the risk of a Nankai Trough earthquake, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
France brings down the curtain on its Olympic party with Tom Cruise and Leon Marchand
Fireworks are set off during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Stade de France in Saint-Denis on Sunday.
Japan fuels U.S. LNG boom even as climate targets and impacts loom
Flaring at the Cameron LNG export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. Flaring, a common sight at LNG plants, is a controlled burning of gas for reasons ranging from depressurizing equipment to disposing of gas that can’t be used. The practice is a "waste of money" and negatively impacts climate change and human health, says the International Energy Agency.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’
By Thu-Huong Ha

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’
Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

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